Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

The recent paper published in your journal by Séralini et al. has resulted in controversy. This has led to calls to retract the paper. I strongly reject such interference in the normal and accepted processes of science, and urge you to resist such pressure. Conceding to this pressure would be to controvert the expertise of your reviewers, who have accepted the Séralini paper as fit to publish. Retraction should be done only for clear instances of abuse, such as fraud, or where subsequent information clearly demonstrates that the paper does not meet scientific standards. Neither has been shown to be the case for the Séralini paper.

In general, the methodology conforms to basic standards of biological experimentation. It also advances this field of study in being one of very few long-term feeding studies using a genetically engineered crop. While some of the results are equivocal, for example the lack of statistical significance in the tumour data, this is a common occurrence in research and can be addressed on its merits by public discussion and further research.

This is not merely an issue of a single paper or author, but an example of what is now becoming a long pattern by proponents of a particular viewpoint attempting to pressure the science community to conform to its wishes. I have observed this pressure for many years, and find it corrosive to the open and unbiased functioning of the scientific process.

I urge you to adhere to the standards of the editor of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, when similar efforts were made in 2007 to discredit the paper by Rosi-Marshall et al. In that case, scientists also petitioned the editor. That editor did the right thing, and rejected the demands of the protestors.

For the continued integrity of the scientific process, I strongly encourage you to reject calls to retract the Séralini paper.